


Jake + Amy

by myrish_lace



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Confessions, Doodles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, Season/Series 02, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-11 18:30:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12941181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrish_lace/pseuds/myrish_lace
Summary: Amy still hasn't gotten over Jake, despite that awful road trip where she told him her feelings were in the past. Amy's convinced there's no way Jake still cares about her the way he used to - not even after his breakup with Sophia.Amy makes a trip to the precinct late at night, trying to drown out her persistent fretting with work. She slips into an old habit - doodling - and draws her name and Jake's together on a napkin. Embarrassing, but harmless. Then Jake walks in.





	Jake + Amy

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing for this fandom! I'm halfway through season 3, but saw the season 3 finale episode title, "Jake and Amy," and couldn't get this idea out of my head. Set sometime before episode 21 of season 2, "Det. Dave Majors," when Jake and Amy go on the assignment with New York's best detective. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> I'm myrish-lace-love on tumblr if you want to say hi! :)

Amy - color-coding, rule-following, five-minutes-early-for-everything Amy - has a secret. She doodles, when her other coping strategies fail her. When, for example, paperwork couldn't soothe her. Usually plowing through a stack of files – imposing order onto a tiny universe – helps her carry that feeling of calm over into real life.

But tonight, her folders were neatly squared away and her mind was still restless. She’d come in to try and stop the constant stream of doubt and second-guessing in her head. She was alone in the precinct, with nothing but the faint buzz of fluorescent lights to keep her company. She nibbled on her lip while drawing on the back of a napkin with a blue ballpoint pen.

 _Jake + Amy_. It was silly, straight out of the fifth grade, though granted she and Jake did act like fifth graders around each other sometimes. But it was an easy, private way to make the connection between them. To skip over the messy talk about feelings and consequences and things left unsaid.

Teddy had been right. Jake was the problem in their relationship. Teddy, being the sharp detective he was, knew it. He called her out on it, during that awful road trip. To make matters worse, Amy had lied - at least by omission - leaving Jake with the impression that any feelings she'd harbored for him were in the past. When, in fact, she was pining for him now. 

Meanwhile, Jake had fallen for Sophia. Beautiful, smooth, immaculate Sophia, who seemed right for him. Sarcastic. Outgoing. A better fit. But Sophia had crushed Jake’s heart, and he was only starting to recover.

Now, _maybe_ , there was a small space, an opening for Amy and Jake. Which is why Amy’s sneaky subconscious drew them together on a napkin, surrounded by a curly-cue heart.

Except Jake had seemed so deeply in love with Sophia that Amy refused to acknowledge there was still room in Jake's life for the two of them. You know. Romantic stylez. She and Jake were friends. Friendship was good. Dependable. And not at all what she wanted. 

She’d been floored when Jake first confessed his feelings. Speechless. He’d spoken to a truth inside her she didn’t know existed. And then he’d left, vanished into the mob, maybe never to be seen again, and she’d thrown herself into her relationship with Teddy. To try to forget the softness in Jake’s eyes, and the answering flutter in her stomach.

"Amy?”

She startled. Jake was in front of her, wearing a rumpled flannel shirt and blinking owlishly. Of course. Of course Jake had to come in tonight too.

Amy groaned and dropped her head on her desk. She could hear him already. _How is the fact that you doodle_ not _the most hilarious part of this night? Is that a heart? Amy, I’m swooning._ He’d do something dumb like get down on his knees, like he had after the bet. _Amy Santiago, will you marry me?_

“Just take the napkin Jake. Go ahead, put it up by the vending machine. Get it over with.” He’d probably frame it.

Silence. She peeked through the arm of her suit jacket. Jake was standing stock still, staring at the paper as if it might bite him.

“I, uh….”

“C'mon Jake. I just handed you the office gossip for a week.” Boyle was definitely going to sing.

He met her eyes and she caught her breath. Softness and wonderment flickered across his face. Sentiments that didn’t look like they would instantly dissolve into a wide-mouthed grin and _ha I totally got you!_

The same vulnerability she’d seen each time he’d confessed how he felt.

He stunbled over his words. “I was gonna get caught up on that B&E but…I gotta go.” Then he took off like she’d lit a fire underneath him.

Amy closed her mouth after a minute. She took the doodle and stuffed it in her bag. He’d be back to normal tomorrow, searching her desk for it.

She dragged herself home, ate Chinese takeout without tasting it, and almost threw the stupid napkin in the stupid trash.

Her hand wavered. _Jake + Amy_. She kept it instead, tucked it deep into the drawer in her bedside table. She felt better, somehow, knowing that she’d written it down. Yes she was pathetic, but really at this point who’s counting?

She flailed around for a good minute before whacking her alarm the next morning. Messy emotions aside, she was, in fact, an adult, and proud of it, and she was going into the office, damnit. So she dragged herself into the precinct, picking up heavily sugared coffee on the way and bracing herself for the inevitable fallout.

***

Jake bounced into the office the next morning, smoothed his hand over his tie, and got to work. Nothing seemed amiss, apart from a tightness around his eyes. Amy sighed and sipped her caffeine.

Rosa glared at her. “Amy, you look like crap.” 

Jake cleared his throat. “Amy was working late last night.”

_Here we go._

“Just…” Jake faltered. “Being the smart, dedicated detective she is.”

Boyle perked up. “So wait, you were here too, Jake?”

Jake waved his hand. “Oh briefly. Came in to check on a file” - despite everything Amy shot him a warning look,  _don’t_ , because they were still partners and she still had his back – “that I definitely did not put in my bag because who brings home confidential files? Who does that? I casually rifled through one, thought some brilliant crime-solving thoughts, and headed home.” Jake turned back to his computer.

Awkward silence filled the room.

Diaz frowned. “What the hell is wrong with you two?”

“Nothing!” Amy said, in that chipper voice that grated on her _own_ nerves sometimes. “Completely normal morning here.”

Rosa snorted. “Yeah sure. Whatever.”

Amy kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. She needed Jake to kid about this. Because it was too weird otherwise. Too…real. Pretty soon she was going to have to talk to him about it, and while that had seemed like the most awful outcome possible last night, it would be an improvement over this standoff. But no matter how many times she glanced over at his desk, Jake wouldn’t meet her eyes.

After lunch, Amy had resorted to hiding away, sorting files in the evidence locker, when the door creaked open.

“Hey,” Jake said, too brightly. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Amy's stomach churned. She couldn't do this anymore. She closed the drawer and turned to face him. “Jake, please, wait. Why aren’t you making fun of me?

Jake looked away. His shoulders hunched. “Did you mean it?”

Amy took a deep breath. She could joke around. She could _try_. She gave him a half-smile. “Are you asking me if I meant my doodle?”

“Yeah. Is it like an equation?” He was putting up a valiant effort too, but she saw the strain on his face. “Jake plus Amy equals - wait there’s no answer that doesn’t sound sexual. Never mind.”

There were lots of answers, actually. Great detectives. Great team. A rhythm and pattern that made sense.

Jake ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, yeah. That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

It had to hurt, to walk in and see evidence that she hadn’t been completely honest with him about her feelings. It was time for her to be brave.

“I wrote a childish note you weren’t supposed to see and I was going to destroy it. Because yes, I like you, that’s not in the past for me, that’s _now._ And that’s not fair to you. Not something I can ask of you. Not after you just broke up with Sophia. And you don't care about me that way anymore. ”

Jake finally met her eyes, and his gaze was pained.

“Amy, I...”

Jake reached for her and she rushed to meet him. She’d imagined kissing him many, many times, but she’d never thought it could be this sweet, this tender. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her like he intended to savor it, like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening either.

Only the two of them could have turned _I like you_ into something more loaded than _I love you_. They’d managed to transform a silly phrase into a concept that was enormous and vast and terrifying. But it had to be vast - large enough to hold all the time's he'd had her back and she'd had his, when his jokes made her bite her lip to keep from laughing, when his big heart caused problem and solved them. 

They broke apart, and Jake rested his forehead on hers. A bubble of happiness rose in her chest. He was warm, and solid, and _here_ , holding her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he pulled her closer. His breath ghosted over her ear.

“Thank god you told me, because I still like you too. I never stopped. Not even when I was with Sophia. I think she figured it out, and broke it off. Because you're the one for me, Amy. You always will be."

Amy snuggled furather into his embrace. "Yeah. Me too." She should probably offer more. But she sucked at feelings too, almost as much as Jake did. They were a hell of a pair. At least they could be terrible at it together.

"I almost had a heart attack, seeing that napkin.” He drew back, and his smile had that familiar smirk. “Ha, heart attack, like the one you drew.”

She giggled. God she’d missed this. Missed _him_. “Seriously, this is the lowest-hanging fruit ever.”

He touched her cheek. “You know, I never asked you when your feelings for me stopped. I wondered, but I didn’t want to pry.”

Amy tangled her fingers in Jake’s hair. “They didn’t. You’ve got a curly-cued heart to prove it.”

“Okay, seriously, did you doodle in school? I have to know.”

“Sometimes. Late at night. Never in class.”

He smiled at her. “No, of course not. Someone might have seen you. Secret’s safe with me."

Amy's doodle did appear on their wedding invitations years later. Boyle, ever the romantic, framed his, and gave it to them as a gift on their one-year anniversary. So _Jake + Amy_ was, eventually, framed and hung on a wall. Amy traced her fingers over it each time she walked by in the hallway, grateful that a silly hobby had been the key to Jake finding his way back to her. 

Or, for them finding their way back to each other.


End file.
